


Working With Dinosaurs

by athersgeo



Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 18:57:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/601037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athersgeo/pseuds/athersgeo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The beginning of a friendship, or, just why DID Innocent send Hathaway to meet Lewis when he returned to the UK?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Working With Dinosaurs

**Author's Note:**

  * For [unbidden_truth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/unbidden_truth/gifts).



> No betas were harmed in the writing of this story. All mistakes are my own; all characters belong to people who aren't me.
> 
> Note: some lines of dialogue are lifted directly from the Lewis pilot episode.

James Hathaway was annoyed.

The M40 was wall-to-wall cars, all going nowhere and doing so slowly. Granted, this was a normal state of affairs for seven o'clock on a Tuesday morning, but given he was supposed to be at Terminal 4 of Heathrow by eight o'clock to meet someone off the red eye flight from New York it was a situation he'd hoped he'd be able to avoid. At their current rate of progression, he might just have reached the M25 by lunchtime...

As he rolled to yet another gentle stop, Hathaway couldn't help but wish this task had been given to anyone other than him. But no; Chief Superintendent Innocent had - as usual - grabbed him for it.

Why?

It made no sense - or none that he could see. He was a relative newcomer to the Oxford force (so was Innocent, if you came to that) and had never met this Detective Inspector Lewis. Oh, he'd heard the stories - heard the awe and respect in the voices of his older colleagues when they talked about Lewis and his old boss, Morse - but when he'd arrived as a newly minted detective sergeant, DI Lewis had already been nine months into a two year secondment with the police in the British Virgin Islands.

Nice work, if you could get it.

The cars started to inch forwards again, dragging Hathaway's mind back to the present. It wouldn't do to have a to report to Innocent that the reason he'd failed to collect his charge was because he'd rear-ended a slow-moving Transit. Though picturing her expression if he told her that did bring a brief moment of amusement in an otherwise frustrating drive.

Three feet further and the traffic was back at a standstill and Hathaway's thoughts drifted back to his original question: why him?

He knew full well that there were a number of people who knew Lewis personally still in the department. Why had Innocent overlooked them in favour of him? He would characterise roughly seventy-five percent of Innocent's decisions as being politically motivated; was this one? He knew she was in the process of "phasing out" the older generation. The dinosaurs, the old school detectives who wouldn't - or couldn't - bend with the times. Was that why she had sent him? To start the subtle (or otherwise) campaign to dispose of Lewis?

Of course, Hathaway was aware he was making an unfair assumption about the returning detective - that he was as antiquated and stuck in his ways as some of the fossils - but after hearing some of the stories of Morse's antics, he didn't see how Lewis couldn't be.

Then again, if he was really was like that he wouldn't have been offered the post in the Caribbean, much less taken it.

So perhaps he wasn't quite that bad, but...

There was an outraged hooting from the car behind him and Hathaway belatedly realised that the traffic was moving again and this time it looked like they might actually stay that way. Shelving his ruminations, he turned his concentration back towards the drive. After all, in another hour or so, he'd have a little more evidence on which to base his assumptions.

*

In a spectacular display of Sod's Law, Hathaway arrived in the Terminal 4 building with fifteen minutes to spare, only to learn that the flight he was meeting was delayed by more than an hour. It was, he reflected, typical - and him without a book to pass the time.

Looking around the terminal building, he spied a branch of W H Smiths. Briefly, he considered going in to buy something to read. He dismissed the idea as ludicrous a moment later, as he neared the shop's entry. The miniscule book selection amply showed they had nothing more challenging than the latest Dan Brown.

On the point of turning away, Hathaway stopped and reconsidered. While he might not be able to acquire reading material, he would be able to purchase a marker pen and some card with which he could make a sign to attract Lewis' attention. After all, he doubted Innocent had bothered to tell Lewis to expect anyone.

Five minutes later, new marker pen in his jacket pocket and card tucked under his arm, Hathaway made his way to a rank of seating just outside a coffee shop to settle in for his wait.

*

Almost an hour and a half after its scheduled arrival, the flight from New York had finally landed and its passengers had begun to dribble through into arrivals. 

Hathaway stationed himself strategically, positioning his newly created sign prominently in the hopes that it would attract the attention of Lewis as and when he came through from baggage claim. With a little luck, the returning detective wouldn't take too long. And for the first time that morning, he wasn't disappointed: not long after taking up his position, a rumpled man in a loud shirt and a bad suit appeared through the doors and then did a double-take.

"You for me?" he asked.

"If you're Inspector Lewis, Oxfordshire police," Hathaway replied dryly. Somehow, this both was and wasn't quite what he was expecting Lewis to look like.

"Didn't order a taxi," said Lewis with a frown.

"Well you're in luck, sir, because I'm not one." Hathaway inwardly rolled his eyes even as he pulled out his ID. "DS James Hathaway. Chief Superintendent Innocent sent me."

"Oh. Very good of her." Lewis didn't look as if he entirely believed his own words.

Hathaway couldn't say he blamed the older man for that, considering he himself was unsure of Innocent's motives. "Yeah." He gestured towards the exit. "Shall we?"

Lewis mustered up a tired smile and nodded. "Home, James."

This time Hathaway's eye roll was very outward. Not polite, but then again, how many times did Lewis think he'd heard that one?

*

It was a largely silent journey back to Oxford. Hathaway considered attempting awkward small talk, but one glance at the tired posture of his passenger made him hold his tongue. He wasn't certain, but he strongly suspected that the older man had been travelling for nearly twenty four hours, between the various legs of his rather awkward journey home, and once they were back in Oxford there was a meeting with Innocent to look forward to. 

Now that he'd met Lewis, he was fairly certain that Innocent was playing mind games, probably with a view to having Lewis pensioned off - not that Lewis was anywhere near retirement age just yet. Somehow, though, Hathaway suspected that Lewis was not a detective who would easily fit into Innocent's brave new world. The worst part was that he suspected Lewis had also worked this out.

It made him feel oddly guilty.

As they reached the outskirts of Oxford, Lewis seemed to rouse himself and inquired when Hathaway had joined the force.

"Just over a year ago," Hathaway answered. Then, awkwardly, he asked a question of his own: "Has Oxford changed much since you've been away?"

"No," said Lewis quietly. "It changed before I left."

It was another conversation stopper, particularly as they'd arrived at their first destination: the quiet graveyard where Val Lewis had been laid to rest.

Hathaway hung back as Lewis cleaned the grave site and placed fresh flowers (orchids flown all the way from the British Virgin Islands) in the vase. It was such a personal moment that he wished he'd thought to wait in the car, rather than follow Lewis into the cemetery.

Then, as his mobile phone began to ring, he wished it even more, particularly when it became apparent it was a call notifying him of a murder.

Lewis, though, didn't appear bothered. If anything, he looked more interested in the new case than he'd been in anything else. Given the massive case of jet lag the older man had to be suffering from, that surprised Hathaway.

Then again, Lewis was an old school police officer who, presumably, tended to put the job first. Perhaps it wasn't so surprising.

What didn't surprise Hathaway was Lewis' refusal to wait by the car when they reached the scene.

"I'm here now," Lewis pointed out, "might as well take a look."

Considering DI Knox wouldn't be making the scene (and Hathaway's thoughts on a copper of long standing getting caught for drink-driving were not fit for repetition), Hathaway didn't argue terribly hard against it. Why waste the experience?

Lewis' balking at wearing a scene-suit (until Dr Hobson informed him they were required now) was also not a surprise. None of the older detectives, including his former boss Knox, were partial to them, so Hathaway expected to receive a litany of complaints about "noddy suits"; Lewis simply shrugged and adapted.

Interesting.

Hathaway began to wonder again at Innocent's motives. Lewis was clearly not the dinosaur he probably ought to have been. So why send a young detective to collect him from the airport?

*

The following evening, standing outside Ivor Dennison's house, watching as the scene was cleared, Hathaway was still no nearer to working out Innocent's thinking. On the one hand, she'd allowed Lewis to work the case; on the other hand, by making it officially DI Grainger's case she was sending a clear "surplus to requirements" message. As Lewis himself had put it earlier that afternoon, the older man could have brought in Jack the Ripper and she wouldn't have given him the time of day.

It was very odd. And the more Hathaway thought about it, the more certain he was that Lewis shouldn't be pensioned off. He was a very good detective and Hathaway had enjoyed working with him, even if they were absolute poles apart in beliefs and personality. Lewis wasn't a modern policeman, true, but he was a more rounded and caring character than some of the other detectives on the force.

"Where's Lewis?" 

The question had come from the newly arrived Chief Superintendent herself.

"Notifying the victims' family," Hathaway answered.

Innocent nodded, a thoughtful expression on her face. "Good." The thoughtful look cleared, as if she'd made a decision. "This was a good result. Good work. I'm impressed."

Hathaway wanted to point out to her that she was talking to the wrong man, but Innocent was not someone you easily interrupted - or contradicted.

"With DI Knox now suspended," Innocent continued, "I've been looking at who you should be assigned to. DI Grainger is in need of a bag man..." She trailed off and gave him a meaningful look.

It would be a promotion of sorts, Hathaway considered. Grainger was one of the up-and-coming DIs in the department - and another of Innocent's favourites. But...he wasn't someone Hathaway thought he could really learn from.

"So is DI Lewis," he found himself saying.

Oddly, Innocent smiled. "He is. Is that what you want?"

"It is, ma'am." Two days ago, Hathaway would have been surprised to say it and mean it, but he did. Lewis would be a good boss.

Innocent nodded. "Good."

Good?

Before Hathaway could ask any further questions, however, she'd departed in a whirl of trench coat and sharp heels, making directly for the newly returned Lewis.

He couldn't hear what she was saying; could only judge it from Lewis' expressions, which went from pleased to dismayed to startled in the course of one very brief conversation. Then Innocent departed the scene, clearly satisfied by both their work and her own.

"Why?" Lewis asked as he finally joined Hathaway in front of the house.

"Because I like working with dinosaurs," Hathaway replied.

Lewis considered that for a moment. Then smiled. "Dinosaur, eh? Been called worse," he decided. "Come on - I'll buy you a drink."


End file.
